


now i'm a broken mirror

by tarialdarion



Series: Eddie Diaz Week 2020 [1]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Eddie Diaz Needs a Hug (9-1-1 TV), Eddie Diaz Week, Multi, Pre-Relationship, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24765730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarialdarion/pseuds/tarialdarion
Summary: Face-to-face communication was hard. Words were hard. Constantly trying to battle the voice in his head that repeated “don’t drag him down with you” was impossible.Frank had known a lot of the mess in Eddie’s head was tangled up in Shannon. It was kind of hard not to know that and Eddie would’ve trusted Frank a lot less if he hadn’t picked up on Eddie’s obvious “dead wife” issues. But for some reason, Eddie was struggling to lay out exactly what kept him awake at night.So. A letter. Not for Frank, not to ever be read by anyone else. Just a letter to lay out every single angry, hurt, painful thought in Eddie’s head.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Past Eddie Diaz/Shannon Diaz
Series: Eddie Diaz Week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1791022
Comments: 10
Kudos: 125





	now i'm a broken mirror

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to stellarmeadow and marvelingjules for being my cheerleaders and assuring me that this is not in fact complete crap <3  
> Written for Day 2 of Eddie Diaz Week: Mr. Diaz Goes To Therapy

_Shannon,_

He paused, looking down at the paper. It felt dumb, addressing a letter to a dead person. What good could come out of writing out all the negative, hateful, ~~hurt~~ angry thoughts that clouded his brain?

This was stupid, so stupid. What was Frank even thinking?

Eddie went to toss his pen down but then…

_“You can’t let it fester, Eddie,” Frank had said, staring at him determinedly, as if he could impart the importance of what he was saying to Eddie himself just with the force of his stare. “You have to let it go.”_

_Eddie had frowned. “Or what?”_

_“Or your bitterness will ruin everything.”_

_Eddie nodded slowly. “I need to do it for Chris.”_

_Frank looked at him sadly. “You need to let go of this, not just for Chris, but for **you**.”_

Writing a letter had been Frank’s idea. Eddie was stalling in therapy and he could feel it. He ended up frustrated and feeling stupid, like he couldn’t quite articulate what was holding him back from expressing the jumbled up mess that cast a dark cloud over his thoughts. How was it so easy for Buck or Chris to just say whatever was dancing through their head?

Face-to-face communication was hard. Words were hard. Constantly trying to battle the voice in his head that repeated “don’t drag him down with you” was impossible.

Frank had known a lot of the mess in Eddie’s head was tangled up in Shannon. It was kind of hard not to know that and Eddie would’ve trusted Frank a lot less if he hadn’t picked up on Eddie’s obvious “dead wife” issues. But for some reason, Eddie was struggling to lay out exactly what kept him awake at night.

So. A letter. Not for Frank, not to ever be read by anyone else. Just a letter to lay out every single angry, hurt, painful thought in Eddie’s head.

_“You deserve better than survival, Eddie,” Frank had said, looking him directly in the eyes. “You deserve to be happy.”_

Happy starts with a letter apparently.

_Shannon,_

_I’m so angry. Frank says this anger is a manifestation of my pain, but he also uses terms like “emotional blackmail” and “poor coping mechanisms” so can we really trust him…_

* * *

“Okay, it’s done,” Eddie announced right away, waving a piece of paper in his hand as he walked into Frank’s office for their next session. “And I was as honest as I could be.”

The incredulous smile on Frank’s face both rankled and pleased Eddie. “I said I would,” he added defensively, sitting down forcefully on Frank’s couch.

Frank laughed. “You are without a doubt a man of your word, Eddie.” He continued smiling as he turned to face Eddie on the couch. “I’m really proud of you.”

Eddie flushed, looking down at the paper in his hands. He shrugged, unsure how to handle this moment of praise. “It’s just words.”

He could feel Frank still looking at him as he replied, “We both know that’s not quite true.” Eddie scowled, unwilling to quite acknowledge that statement. “Therapy is for hard truths, Eddie. If we didn’t tackle the hard issues, there would be no point in this.”

Eddie took a moment to look up at Frank balefully. “Maybe I’m just not a therapy kind of guy.”

The aggressive stance never worked on Frank, despite Eddie’s attempts to elicit an emotional reaction, and this statement was answered with nothing more than an eyebrow raise.

(They had talked about Eddie’s inclination for starting fights or shutting down instead of admitting to hard emotional truths on their third session, but sometimes he just felt so completely _seen_ that he had to try. Frank knew this too.)

Eddie huffed. “Now what?”

Frank raised his other eyebrow. “Now what what?”

Eddie waved the paper a bit. “What do I do with this?”

After a moment of careful observation that had Eddie squirming, Frank shrugged. “Burn it.”

For some reason, that took Eddie completely aback. “What?”

“The most important thing was that you admit to the ‘mess’, as you call it, in your mind,” Frank explained. “The letter was never going to be seen by anyone but you, so you can get rid of it.”

Burn it.

He was a firefighter, he worked around fire every day. Why did a simple suggestion of burning a piece of paper just…feel so _wrong_?

* * *

“What’s the problem with burning it?” Buck asked, plopping down next to Eddie on the couch.

“I don’t know, man. It just,” Eddie took another sip from his bottle and let his head fall back against the pillows so he was staring at the ceiling. “it just feels wrong, is all.”

He could feel Buck’s contemplative stare on the side of his face. He felt raw, vulnerable, like admitting that he still had unresolved issues over his dead wife months later was an inescapable weakness. Telling Buck wasn’t quite like telling Bobby or Frank: talking to Bobby was an explosion of necessity and Frank was scarily good at coaxing things out of him.

But Buck…Buck should only ever see the best that Eddie had to offer. All this anger at his dead wife was far from Eddie’s best.

Anger that he shouldn’t even be feeling anyway. It wasn’t her fault that she left. Died.

He was the one who came back broken.

_She wanted a divorce._

_She was your wife._

_She left you first._

_Why aren’t you over this._

_Why are you so weak._

Half-formed phrases and dark whispers reverberated through his head until a grasp of his shoulder had Eddie jolting out of his skin.

“Sorry, sorry!” Buck had his hands up defensively. “You weren’t answering me, and I got freaked out.”

Eddie swallowed hard, banishing the distracting whispers to the back of his head. “I just…got distracted, sorry, Buck.”

Buck studied him for a long moment as Eddie turned to face him on the couch. He nodded slowly in acceptance of Eddie’s excuse and held up his phone. “Let’s throw it in the ocean!”

Eddie stared at him dumbly. “Huh?”

“The letter? You said burning it didn’t feel right so, I thought: ocean!” Eddie continued to stare, struck silent by the idea as Buck rambled about biodegradable paper and safe ocean practices. He realized he was silent for too long only after Buck started to shrink back, pocketing his phone quickly and shifting in his seat. “You’re right, it was stupid. I didn’t – I just – you had mentioned that’s where you read Shannon’s letter and so I – “

“Buck!” Eddie interrupted Buck’s panicked ramble with a hand on his shoulder. “Buck, stop.” Buck subsided quickly, watching Eddie warily. Eddie smiled at him wanly, still thrown by the emotional whiplash of today. “It’s perfect.”

Buck huffed out a breath so forcefully it could’ve been called a sigh. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Eddie’s smile was a little more real now. “It feels right.”

And it did. Maybe not because it was the perfect catharsis, but Buck had remembered.

He had remembered that one off-hand comment Eddie had made about Shannon’s letter and figured out a way to use it to help him heal.

Eddie felt his eyes burn with unshed tears and forcibly shoved the overwhelming feeling of being cared for down until it was all but crushed under the weight of his control. One beer and a significant amount of emotional turmoil could only get him through so much vulnerability. He cleared his throat.

“Tomorrow?” Eddie asked, not quite making eye contact with Buck, picking at the label on his beer bottle.

“Tomorrow what?” Buck replied and Eddie frowned. Did Buck not want – oh. Stupid Eddie, just because Buck wanted to help doesn’t mean he wants to get up early just to watch you throw a letter to your dead wife into the ocean, stupid stupid –

“Woah!” Buck put his hand over where Eddie was ripping into the soggy paper barely clinging to the bottle. “I don’t know where you went, but it wasn’t good.” Eddie shook Buck’s hand off.

“It’s fine,” he said, gathering the little bits of paper into one hand, “I didn’t realize I said it out loud accidentally – I think I’ll go tomorrow and get it over with.”

“Eddie.” Buck’s voice was serious enough that Eddie actually turned to make eye contact, shifting awkwardly under the understanding in Buck’s eyes. “Do you want me to go with you?”

Fuck. Yes, of course Eddie wanted him to come. He never wanted to be without Buck, never wanted to be alone again, and definitely never wanted to face the demons of his anger by himself. He took a second to study Buck, but his body language showed nothing but earnest honesty, learning forward into Eddie’s space with determination.

Eddie averted his eyes, crumpling the little bits of paper in his fist. “Yes,” he said, quietly and firmly.

He could practically feel the force of Buck’s smile at his answer. “Then I’ll be there.”

A tension that Eddie hadn’t even noticed come over him eased. He wouldn’t be alone.

* * *

The ocean breeze makes Eddie shiver as he stands with his toes in the sand, the soft light of the sunrise barely brushing across his face. It’s early, almost too early, and few people are out on the beach besides runners and dog walkers. The water splashes lightly across his feet and forces him out of the anticipatory stillness. He looked down at the glass bottle in his hand and back out over the sea.

Eddie took a deep breath.

And threw.

After all that emotional build up, the small splash the bottle made as it hit the ocean seemed almost anti-climactic. He stood watching the bottle get carried out to sea, trying to puzzle through how he felt about it. He didn’t feel like crying, no bone-deep aching sadness that overwhelmed him like the last time he was on this beach with a letter. He mostly felt…something.

He heard soft footsteps in the sand behind him and felt Buck’s steady presence settle at his right shoulder, close enough to touch without quite making contact. Those scant inches between them felt like miles and nothing at all simultaneously as Eddie desperately wanted to feel Buck pressed against him while also desperately needing to stand strong on his own.

The sudden contradictory feeling led to a realization.

Peace. When he threw the bottle, he felt peace.

Maybe Frank wasn’t so crazy after all.

The thought had a small laugh escaping his lips and Buck glanced over to him, his steady presence just adding to the feeling of freedom that Eddie was discovering. Eddie met his gaze firmly.

“Thank you.” It was said quietly enough that the wind may have caught the words before they could make it to Buck, but Buck nodded and shuffled closer to bump Eddie’s shoulder affectionately.

“Anytime,” he said softly, leaving his shoulder brushing against Eddie’s with every small movement. Eddie’s skin burned where they touched and he never wanted to leave that peaceful moment, staring out across the water with Buck at his side.

Maybe it was time to write a new letter.

* * *

_Buck,_

_I should’ve said this a long time ago…_

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](https://tari-aldarion.tumblr.com/)
> 
> ALSO DON'T THROW GLASS BOTTLES IN THE OCEAN, IT'S BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT. I just choose to believe that Buck has some fisherman that he knows get the bottle and then he, idk, does something environmentally friendly with it.  
> Look, I just wanted Eddie to throw the letter in the ocean and it's like 11pm so we went with glass bottle.


End file.
